 This article is about a character designer involved in the Super Sentai and Power Rangers franchises.
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Tsuyoshi Nonaka (野中剛) is a renowned graphic artist and character designer who works in anime and tokusatsu. One of his most notable contributions in pop culture outside of tokusatsu is creating character designs for the Transformers franchise.
Biography[]
One of Tsuyoshi’s earliest memories is that of playing with a sofubi toy of an Ultra Kaiju at age 3 in 1966 during the broadcast of the original Ultraman. He would then play pretend towards the end of the 1960s, imagining he was part of the Monster Attack Team from Ultraseven. After 1971, like many of his creative peers, Tsuyoshi became enamored with the Henshin Heroes of Shotaro Ishinomori and then fascinated with toy design upon seeing the Chogokin robot toys developed by Katsushi Murakami.
In the mid 1980s, after graduating high school, he was hired to do artwork in Terebi Magazine for the Transformers segments of the publication, which caught the attention of Bandai in 1987. He was hired to do toy designs for Jiban and later installments of the Metal Heroes, citing that he took partial inspiration from American ‘80s sci-fi films such as Robocop and the art of Syd Mead from Blade Runner for the Rescue Police Trilogy.
In 1993, Bandai and PLEX hired him to do work for Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger, which proved very successful and led to new innovations in toys such as the Zyusouken, which accurately recreated the sounds and functions of the TV show weapon. He briefly did freelance work for Takara, designing for the 1993 Tsuburaya series Gridman. Afterwards, he became one of the lead designers for both the Super Sentai series and the Metal Heroes throughout the 1990s.
One of his biggest contributions to Super Sentai at large were the popularization of the 6th Rangers and their Robos and making cellular phones a standard option for transformation devices starting with Megaranger. After the cancellation of the Metal Heroes, Nonaka began working on toy designs for the Heisei Kamen Riders starting with Kuuga. In the 2000s, he oversaw the launch and development of the Soul of Chogokin toyline.
In 2011, Nonaka became the head of the US division of PLEX's design team for Bandai America, designing costumes and toys for the Power Rangers franchise. In 2014, he resigned, returned to Japan and became an independent freelance designer. Despite this, he often returns to the USA for conventions to meet fans and show off his drawing skills such as at Power Morphicon. He also did articles for Uchusen magazine, such as a six issue mini-series discussing the Rescue Police Trilogy.
In 2023, he attended the third bi-annual Japan World Heroes convention in Burbank, California as a guest and spoke at a panel.
Filmography[]
TV[]
- Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers - Mecha concept art
- Denkou Choujin Gridman - concept art and mecha design
- Kamen Rider Kuuga
- Weapons and Vehicle designer [1] - Kamen Rider Ryuki - Cards, Weapons and mechanical designer
- Kamen Rider 555- Faiz Driver and weapons designer.
- Kamen Rider Blade - Rouze card system, weapon and mechanical designer.
- Kamen Rider Hibiki- Weapons, character and mechanical designer
- Power Rangers Samurai - Mega Mode Designer, Toy Designer
- Shin Mazinger Z - Mecha Designer
- Mazinkaiser SKL - Mecha Designer
- Ben 10 series -Toy designer[2]
- ThunderCats (Remake)- Toy designer
- The Toys That Made Us - himself, acted as historian describing his work
- Gridman Universe franchise-Mechanical design, including his original designs from the 1993 Gridman show.
- Weapons and Vehicle designer Notes[]
- Tsuyoshi has a one of a kind gold MMPR Ultrazord toy that was given as a gift to him by his employer. Despite many fans and toy collectors begging him and making offers for it, Mr. Nonaka has refused to sell it, intending to give it to his heirs. He cheekily stated at Japan World Heroes that its collectors value as a one of a kind variant would “allow someone to buy a large 7 room house”.
- A part of Tsuyoshi’s design philosophy on certain Super Sentai toys and toys in general involves what he calls a “do not touch” idea. He sees items in real life that children are not allowed to touch or hold and uses that to build an idea from. Example of this would be the Car Navick from Carranger, which is based on car navigation devices from the 1990s or the Mantan Gun from Go-Onger, which is based on a gas pump nozzle. He explains that giving an opportunity for a child to touch items similar to what objects they cannot touch stimulates their imagination and allows them to feel more grown up.
- Tsuyoshi’s other design philosophy is to follow what is going on in trends at the time and do his own take on it in a way that doesn’t come off as a ripoff, but more of an inspiration.
- Examples he gave included:
- The space themed mecha of Megaranger being a response to the resurgence of popularity for Star Wars toys in the mid 1990s.
- His MagiPhone and the magic theme of Magiranger being inspired by the Harry Potter franchise.
- Boukenger taking inspiration from the resurgence of interest in the Indiana Jones franchise.
- Go-Onger took inspiration from several things including real life objects but the most notable inspirations were the 2006 Cars film, Takara’s Thomas the Tank Engine toys and for Speedor, Joe the Condor’s Condor Attacker from Gatchaman II.
- Examples he gave included:
References[]
Footnotes[]